This post is republished from SFForest.org (with permission). The Natural Areas Program controls about a quarter of Sutro Forest, and has recently used pesticide there. Meanwhile, UCSF has said they will not use pesticide in the area they control.

New life in a park tree

San Francisco Forest Alliance has a new petition up to ask the Mayor to rein in the Natural Areas Program, and stop them from cutting down healthy trees, ripping out understory habitat, using growing amounts of pesticides, and restricting public access.

Wait, isn’t that what our existing petition does?

Yes. But from an October 2013 SF Chronicle article, we learned that Mayor Lee has undertaken to respond to petitions provided in a specific format on provider Change.org, once they cross a certain number of signatures. So we think this is a more direct way to approach him. (Our other petition continues live.)

So we’re asking you to please sign this new petition in support of all our wilder parks, and to preserve our access to them. And please pass it on.

We especially request San Francisco residents to sign this! But we’re a world class city, and depend on people from everywhere. So we think this issue affects people from all of the Bay Area, or beyond.